Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Neutrality

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From Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion:

A number of Tory candidates for the anticipated election appear to have created lengthy vanity screeds--in some cases simply copying and pasting their bios from their campaign websites. Certainly they are entitled to an article; I would like to see more candidates with articles. But the content needs to be encyclopaedic. I am fixing what I can, but with 308 ridings, its not a one-person job. Please, help! -Carolynparrishfan 13:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Niki Ashton for a NDP candidate.

Our election system is inherently bias in favour of the incumbent. People are more likely to vote for the devil they know and name recognition goes a long way. According to Wikipedia policy only the incumbents, those who have done something interesting in life, or those who are leaders of parties get articles. They get the privledge of being described as people. Everyone else is a name on a list. In recent elections a hodge-podge of "non-notable" candidates have gotten articles. Some were deleted, some not and some were deleted & re-created.

Possible solutions:

1. Follow Wikipedia policy by AfDing every attempt to create articles of potentially non-notable candidates.
2. Create temporary articles on all candidates, bulk delete them after the election.
3. Redirect similar candidates to a group article, like Green Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election

[edit] Comments

• I don't think the Green Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election format is working very well. I've been filling in past election results for many federal ridings, and I'm repeatedly running into candidates from 2000 or earlier, but whose name redirects to a 2004 list, or to one of the provincial lists. - SimonP 02:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Links from past election articles to a list of candidates of different election may fall under Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. If the list is of candidates from the 2004 election then the candidates from the 2000 election (even if it the same person) probably should be unwikified as it is not in the same context and would be confusing to readers. -maclean25

• I'm simply not convinced that NPOV requires us to have articles about every candidate for political office in Canada even if they didn't win. Although I initially favoured the "unified single list" solution when it was first proposed, I'm far less impressed with it in practice. A person is not entitled to an article on Wikipedia just because they want one. We really have to stick to the same standards that any other political jurisdiction is held to: if they're not an incumbent or a person who was already notable for other reasons, they just don't get an article unless and until they win a notable office. I sincerely doubt any voter is going to decide how to vote based on whether their preferred candidate has a Wikipedia article or not. Bearcat 08:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • People don't vote based on a 15 second commercial they saw of some guy hugging some kid. But they pay thousands of dollars for that. It is all about getting your name and face out there, preferably associated with something nice and intelligent. It is about wearing down the voter's defenses and getting the voter to think they know the candidate. Wikipedia is free and that is tempting during an all-or-nothing first-past-the-post race. Anyways, the point is the candidates will get articles. (I don't like this policy but) Anybody can create an article on anything. It may only last 5 days but everybody with access to Wikipedia has that right. If it is not about NPOV then it is about heading them off and not letting their slanted bio linger for 5 days like Niki Ashton up there or the other guy --maclean25

• I prefer the list system but with an analytical introduction (for the history buffs in the audience). It follows Wikipedia guidelines by avoiding giving every monkey an their own article while presenting a group of people that may be of interest to readers viewing electoral-district or political-party pages. It avoids clogging the AfD system with our monkey-corpses. Plus AfDs will just serve to boost the hit count of that article as people vote. It is easy to watch for inappropriateness (glowing peacock reviews and attack/vandalism). If candidates do create a article(and they will), it is easy to revert to the re-direct. --maclean25 06:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• I think we should just include short bios (one paragraph) of all candidates on the riding page, in a section on the 2006 election, with links to the person's articles where relevant. Any article on a candidate not notable for other reasons should be mercilessly speedy deleted as vanity pages. Links in list of candidates by party should direct to the riding page. Any support? Luigizanasi 03:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Sounds reasonable; will losing candidates then have that information taken out? If not, pages could get very bloated after a few elections on this system... Radagast 12:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Bios for losing candidates (and the winning ones) can be transferred to a list system after an election. That way we won't lose any information. p_b1999 ^{(Talk|Contribution)} 19:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)